


Don’t Worry, We’ll Be Watching You

by cerozer0



Series: Did We Ever Have a Choice [1]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon typical anxiety, Feelings and judgement, Jump into Jon’s head for a bit and just hang out, Other, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-17 23:00:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21851089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cerozer0/pseuds/cerozer0
Summary: “Don’t worryYou’re walking awayBut we’ll always be watching you.”━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Jonathan Sims attends his first Magnus Institute Holiday party. He can’t shake the feeling that he is being watched.
Series: Did We Ever Have a Choice [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1578271
Comments: 2
Kudos: 33





	Don’t Worry, We’ll Be Watching You

**Author's Note:**

> [THE PLAYLIST](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4kFZK3fRifXUdfEIzIBM8B?si=gvJKYHH7SreLKc_RHNSXuw)  
> ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
> 
> This is the first of a series of vignettes that have all been inspired by the music in this playlist. Every song is in order as the vignettes will appear. Today, we walk through a party and judge people through the eyes of Jonathan Sims, before he even considered the idea of being Head Archivist.
> 
> This story takes place before Season 1.
> 
> ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

_December 21st, 2012_

The canteen of The Magnus Institute had been gutted, stuffed full of baubles and fancy light fixtures and table cloths, and set out to dry in preparation for the annual office party. Apparently, it was a company tradition, to gather together on the night of the winter solstice to make merry with people from departments you may as well don’t know exist. Jon had many other things he would rather be doing, maybe. He couldn’t think of any at the moment, but standing there in that faux-glitter hall, pressed against one of the awkwardly sloped pillars with a flute of flat champagne, made him want to do absolutely anything else. 

The turn out was surprisingly great. Jon didn’t think the institute had so many workers, but he was more often than not caught off guard when it came to his new work situation. Some faces were familiar, like Martin, another research, who was one currently chit-chatting with a tall, handsome man that Jon didn’t know by name. Next to him was Sasha, the friendly woman who worked in Artifact Storage. She looked rather pretty in her azure dress— it brought out the icy undertones of her dark skin. 

Compared to the handsome man, who probably looked good in anything but was currently looking superbly good in tan slacks and a striped button-up, and Martin, who wobbled from side to side in a jumper that seemed to want to swallow him whole, Sasha was overdressed. She didn’t seem to notice or mind. All three of them were too focused on talking, laughing, moving like a cohesive unit of merriment.

Jon pressed the flute of champagne to his lips but did not drink. His breath fogged the glass, seeped across it like a timeless frost. He hadn’t thought to go home and change for the party, so he was trapped in a ratty cardigan and dark pants. It was hard not to feel out of place, maybe even out of time, compared to the three before him, and the rest of the institute’s staff. He also wasn’t the type to lean into conversation or camaraderie. All of the pockets of people speaking and laughing around him made him feel more lonely than he ever thought he could understand.

Maybe he should’ve just stayed home.

“Jon,” Someone said to his left, “so happy you could join us for the festivities.” Jon startled and turned to find Elias Bouchard, smiling pleasantly, looking as put together as always. His blond, almost colorless hair, had turned gold in the warm light bowing down at them.

“It’s uh, well– I thought it would be nice,” Jon mumbled, reaching out to let Elias clink their glasses together, “I didn’t realize there were so many people worked here.”

“Yes, well, many of them don’t like stepping out of their departments. They’re good at hiding, you see.” Elias’ smile seemed to hide something. Jon pursed his lips and found he had nothing to say. Elias cleared his throat and dragged his eyes over Jon’s body, and then he reached out and brushed something off of his shoulder. “Watch out for the spiders, Jon,” He hummed and turned on his heel, walking back into the crowd, right towards Martin and Sasha and the other one.

Jon quickly reached up to grab his shoulder, fingers digging hard into his cardigan, his flesh. The fear that clung to him from childhood churned in his stomach. Spiders, huh? He pushed off the wall, glanced back to see if there really had been a dastardly creature attached to him, and when he found nothing he stepped off toward the nearest window. 

No-one stopped him to say hello, though certainly, Jon felt eyes on his back until he was at the large window at the front of the canteen, peering down at the front lawn of The Magnus Institute. Yellow lamplight painted the greenery orange, and the sky was gray and swirling. Insidious darkness sat at the edges of the distant street, deep and prowling.

Jon downed his drink and relished the sting of bubbles on his tongue. He turned back to the party and watched the people mingling, soaking in everything but their faces. Some woman in a pantsuit spilled her drink on a nearby man, and Jon’s eyebrows furrowed as he watched her shrink back immediately. The man seemed nonchalant about the mess, but the woman had quite an obvious fear response. Somewhere nearby he could hear a few employees talking about some sort of movie, though Jon lost interest in listening to the conversation when someone he doesn’t know, some director named Neil Lagorio, was brought up. Deeper into the hall, Jon watched a stout little man flipping feverishly through some sort of novel. The book cover revealed it to be some sort of YA monster novel. Next to him, a person with a head full of black coils cackled and fed him crackers covered in brie and jam.

“Interesting, isn’t it?” Someone said to his right. Jon gasped and nearly dropped his glass. He turned, entirely ready to hiss out some vitriolic retort, but the words died on his tongue when he found that it was Gertrude Robinson, the esteemed Head Archivist, smirking at him with obvious mirth. “Ah, sorry. I assumed you’d be more… Perceptive.”

“Er, uh. I was distracted,” Jon mumbled, fumbling with his empty champagne flute, “Ms. Robinson, uh, hello. I’m–” Gertrude was still smiling like she knew something he didn’t. She was a very lovely old woman, straight-backed and assertive. Her white hair was pinned back into a tight bun, and her dark skin was folded and wrinkled like bent book spines. Her cream-colored trenchcoat clung to her like a second skin. Jon was terrified of her.

“Jonathan Sims, I presume.” Gertrude reached out to squeezed Jon’s palm, “it is a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Sims. Elias has said he… Expects great things from you.”

“Oh! Oh, has he?” Jon stared back into the crowd to try and scope out Elias’ slim figure, but he found nothing except that constant feeling of being observed. Gertrude seemed to consider Jon for a moment, her eyes locked on his face. Her lips pursed, her pupils seemed to shrink. Jon then realized, with a sudden horrific swoop of his stomach, that she was not looking at him, but through him. “Uhm, Ms. Robinson, are you…?”

“I’m quite alright, Mr. Sims.”

“Please, uh, call me Jon,” He said, anxious. His fingers circled the base of his glass, plucked at the expensive glass stem, and he found comfort in the vibrations created by his own choice. He smiled meekly as Gertrude’s eyes seemed to refocus on his glass and hands.

“Jon, then. I hope you are finding working here to be comfortable,” She said, nearly purred. She lifted a glass of water to her lips and drank daintily. Jon noticed the callouses on her palm through the glass and fought off an urge to ask her why exactly an archivist would have such worn-looking hands. “I hope we’ll be seeing each other sometime, working together. Elias always likes to pair more, hm, quiet individuals with me.” Her expression said she didn't quite mean to say "quiet".

“Ah, uh, well… I’m more of a researcher than an archivist but, I suppose any work they give to me is work worth doing, right?” Jon tried to smile, but he felt his lips warble and bend into a grimace. Gertrude laughed humorlessly.

“I suppose so. I suppose so,” Gertrude chuckled. Her head snapped quickly to the crowd, and then back to Jon, her glasses glinting in the golden light, “Now then, Jon, I’ll leave you to your people-watching. We’ll… I’ll be watching out for you, yes?” She ducked her head, a farewell bow, and then took long, elegant strides through the crowd, not even bothering to stop and listen whenever hands or voices raised to call out to her. Jon sighed as all of his anxiety washed away with her. What remained, though, was the feeling of eyes on his back. He was being watched.

And then he saw Martin, dragging along his little band of grinning coworkers right in Jon's direction, waving like some sort of child. Jon pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed.

God, he should've just stayed home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The meeting with Gertrude was inspired by [this post. ](https://turnipwine.tumblr.com/post/189444823519/workin-through-some-tma-requests-in-my-free-time) I snuck a few lyrics in there, maybe you'll be able to find them! Or, maybe not.


End file.
